I will preface this review with a disclaimer. I very lucky; I cannot really hear the difference between amps all that well. I say I’m lucky because I don’t need to spend a lot of money to enjoy my music. I decided to compare the various iCans and the Magni 1st gen for this write up.
All testing on the Pro was done using the SS mode. I tried the other tube modes, but to tell you the truth, I could not hear a difference. I can certainly hear a difference between my Crack amp and the SS mode of the Pro.
Using as a preamp to speaker amp.
- Gain goes though the pre-out. Odd
- Remote is very finicky as to direction pointed. Not a great remote. All it can do is volume up and down. Pretty useless.Then it stopped working.
-3D with speakers widens the sound, as advertised. Tried with Mating Dance from WILSON AUDIO Ultimate Reference
-On Take Five, the 3D effect seemed to move the saxophone to the left a little. Odd.
-The 3D effect also makes the speakers louder
-Tube vs SS. difference were subtle, but there. Trumpets were smoother to me. Less noticeable, but some smoothness with female vocals. I didn't hear this difference with headphones.
Misc
-The amp is light. moving the slider switches causes the amp to slide.
The lettering on the amp is small, and the contrast is relatively low because of the brushed look of the metal. The lettering was hard to read under low light.
HD800 single ended:
- full volume on 0 gain is bearable. 9db gain is just the right play on the volume
- Bass boost is rather subtle at level 1, nice at level 2, and boomy at level 3
- Sound stage vs the Magni: wider on the Pro. maybe. possibly
- the 3G effect does something very subtle, and only to certain songs. I think it thins out the upper mids
HD800 Balanced
- Significantly more power. On 0 gain, ear starts to bleed at 10:00 on the volume dial
- Bouncing between single-ended and balanced (same cable with an adapter), I hear no difference in sound other then volume (which is consistent with, you know, physics)
- SS mode is less grainy than the Magni (expected, but not by much to my ears)
Pro iCan vs iCan SE
With T1 (balanced to Pro, adapter to SE):
Pro: medium volume gain needed. 10Hz is barely discernible. 20Hz is good. 40Hz is too much
SE: High gain needed. Low bass boost is good. High boost is too much
The T1 sounds greet with the Pro as the 20Hz boost is just what the T1 (early gen 1) needed. The T1 can totally handle the extra bass; it’s very tight with the boost.
With Ether C 1.1, one black pad (balanced to Pro, adapter to SE):
Pro: no gain needed, 10Hz bass boost doesn’t nothing. 20 is good, 40 too much
SE: medium gain, low bass boost adds a nice kick. high bass boost too much
Like the T1, the Ether C 1.1 can handle the bass boost at 20Hz. At 40 it sounded bloated.
With TH600, single-ended, Lawton Modded, BrainWavez Hybrid pad, one MrSpeakers Doggie Treat pad
The two amps sound the same to me.
With the PMx2, I can finally hear the 10Hz bass boost with Hotel California from Hell Freezes Over, but only in the beginning, and it’s very subtle.
Listening to Peel Me A Grape, Dianna Krall, I think I he’d a little more clarity in her voice on the Pro vs the SE
I think at the high bass boost setting, the bass bleeds too much and it should never be used.
Great song to play with the 3D sound: Sonny Rollins: I’m an old coward
Pro: The more the 3D effect applied, the more the bass gets moved outward to the right and the sax get moves inward from the left
SE: setting 1 (switch down), sax and bass are drawn inward and up a little, very much like crossfeed. On setting 3 (switch up), The sax is drawn a little up an in, but no mush, but the bas is drawn way up and in.
Quite different effects from between the Pro and the SE
Another good song to experiment with is For What It’s Worth by Buffalo Springfield
I just got a Fostex TH900 MkII. Lovely. I think I might maybe be able to hear a little difference in bass quality with these headphones. Maybe possibly a little. The bass is smoother and less grainy than the Magni (I returned the SE).
Conclusions:
Amp certainly looks nice, but questionable ergonomic design leaves area for improvement. The little switches for tube mode and gain are awfully small, and require you hold the amp when you switch them. I imagine they are not meant to be switched often, so the designer didn’t mind the trade off. The gain switch on the front of the Pro is certainly better than the dip switches for gain on the SE!
As of the ridiculous number of outputs, well, my adjective there probably tells you what I think of them. 6mm SE, 3.5mm SE, 6mm split L/R balance, 3pin XLR split L/R balanced, 4 pin XLR Balanced, 3.5mm balanced. Six headphone outputs on one amp (three reused) is just not needed. I think it would have been much better to just have a 6mm SE and 4pin XLR, and either include adapters in the box, or sell as accessories (or BYO).
One feature it doesn’t have is fixed pre-out (line out). The pre-out is great to take advantage of the all the bells and whistles, but a switch to bypass the volume and gain and just do Line out would have been greatly appreciated.
As for sound, the Pro sounds maybe a little tiny clearer for certain sounds like a clear female vocalist or trumpets in a symphony. “little tiny" ain't much, but it’s there (or I imagined it). This clarity will vary depending on headphones or speakers, source, and of course, ears. Switching to the Magni (first gen), the Magni sounds as clear as the Pro, but a tad harsher. We are talking gnat’s wings of difference to me. It’s also very possible the difference is due to volume matching.
As for the feature set. The bass boost might be nice for certain headphones, but I didn’t find the 3D all that useful, nor the tube modes. The bass boost at 10 or 20Hz might be good, but at 40Hz it bled horribly. The 3D just didn’t do anything for me with headphones, but may have made my near field speakers a tad wider. I doubt I would use it.
If you are sure you can hear the difference between good amps, then maybe the Pro is for you. Otherwise the iCan SE is excellent. I think the tube and SS in one amp is not necessary. Too many outputs also spoils the UI a bit. The Pro is a very nice amp with an impressive feature set.
Thanks to iFi for the opportunity to test the Pro. The tour is greatly appreciated.
